Telepathy and the Subliminal Self Part 17

It will be noticed in these cases that although the perception has its origin centrally, in the mind itself, and is even voluntarily produced, still, it is seen as an impression made upon the visual organ in exactly the same manner as a picture thrown upon the retina by a real external object; it disappears when the eyes are closed or an opaque object intervenes, and follows the laws of optics in general; hence, strictly speaking, these perceptions are also real.

(2) Perceptions may have their origin _peripherally_--that is, the point of excitation which causes the act of perception in the mind may exist in the external sense organs themselves, even when no external object corresponding to the perception exists at the time, or it is not in a position on account of distance or intervening objects to affect the senses.

In examining the cases which may be placed under this head they resolve themselves into two cla.s.ses: those which occur in connection with some disease or defect in the sense organ concerned, and those which are recrudescences or after-visions, arising from over-excitation of those organs; for instance, after looking through a window in a very bright light--even a considerable length of time afterwards--on shutting the eyes or looking into a dark room, an image of the window is seen with all its divisions and peculiarities of construction distinctly presented. To the country lad returning home at night from his first visit to the circus the whole scene is again presented; and ring, horses, equestrians, acrobats and clowns are all seen and externalized with the utmost distinctness; even the crack of the ring-master's whip is heard and the jokes and antics of the clowns repeated.

(3) Perceptions may have their origin telepathically--that is, scenes and incidents transpiring at a distance far too great to affect the bodily organs of sense in any direct or ordinary way do, nevertheless, in some way, cause perceptions to arise in the mind corresponding to those same scenes and incidents.

This is comparatively a new proposition in psychology and has for its basis studies and experiments which have only been systematically made within the past fourteen years. These studies and experiments relate to telepathy, automatism, and the action of the subliminal self. They have been undertaken and carried on by various societies interested in experimental psychology, but chiefly by the English Society for Psychical Research, some of the results of whose labors have been briefly sketched in the preceding chapters.

In addition to the reports of these societies an important contribution to the subject of apparitions was published by the then secretaries of the Society for Psychical Research, the late Mr. Edmund Gurney, Mr. Frederick W. H. Myers, and Mr. Frank Podmore.

It appeared under the t.i.tle, _Phantasms of the Living_, and contained more than seven hundred instances relating to various forms of hallucinations and phantasms--carefully studied and authenticated cases which were selected from several thousand presented for examination. It is to these sources chiefly that I shall refer for cases ill.u.s.trating the subject under consideration.

It seems hardly necessary to recapitulate here the experiments on which the doctrine of telepathy or thought-transference is established--experiments which have been carefully made by so many well qualified persons, and which have proved convincing to nearly every one, whether scientific or unscientific, who has patiently followed them, though of course not convincing to those who choose to remain ignorant of the facts.

The same is true regarding the subject of automatism and the existence and action of the subliminal self. It remains to show the interesting relations which these subjects bear to hallucinations in general, and especially to phantasms and apparitions.

It is well known that hallucinations can be voluntarily or purposely produced by one person in the mind of another, and in various ways, though few perhaps consider to what an extent this is possible. In many of the most astonis.h.i.+ng feats of the conjurer, and especially of the Indian fakir, suggestion and the imagination are brought into service to aid in producing the illusions.

Regarding the hallucinations which may be produced in the mind of the hypnotized subject by the hypnotizer there can be no doubt.

The following case is in point and ill.u.s.trates telepathic influence excited at a distance as well. It is from _Phantasms of the Living_, and the agent, Mr. E. M. Glissold, of 3 Oxford Square, W., writes substantially as follows:--

"In the year 1878 there was a carpenter named Gannaway employed by me to mend a gate in my garden; when a friend of mine (Moens) called upon me and the conversation turned upon mesmerism. He asked me if I knew anything about it myself. On my replying in the affirmative he said, 'Can you mesmerize any one at a distance?' I said that I had never tried to do so, but that there was a man in the garden whom I could easily mesmerize, and that I would try the experiment with this man if he (Moens) would tell me what to do. He then said, 'Form an impression of the man whom you wish to mesmerize, in your own mind, and then wish him strongly to come to you.'

"I very much doubted the success of the experiment, but I followed the directions of my friend, and I was extremely astonished to hear the steps of the man whom I wished to appear, running after me; he came up to me directly and asked me what I wanted with him. I will add that my friend and I had been walking in the garden and had seen and spoken with the carpenter, but when I wished him to come to me I was quite out of his sight behind the garden wall, one hundred yards distant, and had neither by conversation nor otherwise led him to believe that I intended to mesmerize him.

"On another occasion, when the Hon. Auberon Herbert was present, the following scene occurred. Gannaway was mesmerized and stood in one corner of the dining-room. Herbert sat at the table and wrote the following programme, each scene of which Mr. Glissold, the magnetizer, was to _silently call up in his own mind_.

"(1) I see a house in flames.

"(2) I see a woman looking out of a window.

"(3) She has a child in her arms.

"(4) She throws it out of the window.

"(5) Is it hurt--?

"Gannaway became much excited, describing each scene as it pa.s.sed through the mind of his hypnotizer. Several well known persons add their testimony to the above statement."

A single case of mental action so strange and unusual, no matter how well authenticated, might not impress a cautious truth-seeker, but when fortified by well studied cases in the experience of such men as Esdaile, as shown in his remarkable experiments upon the natives of India, and especially his well known one of hypnotizing the blind man at a distance, also those of Prof. Janet, Prof. Richet, Dr. Gibert, and Dr. Hericourt, in France under the observation of Mr. Myers and other members of the Society for Psychical Research, and hundreds of other cases of hypnotizing at a distance, or silently influencing the subject without hypnotization, the matter then challenges attention and belief;--and it is from abundant observation of such cases, from the simplest examples of thought-transference to the most wonderful exhibition of perceptive power at great distances, that the doctrine of Telepathy is founded.

In the following case the agent was able to project his own semblance or phantasm a distance of several miles; and it was then distinctly perceived by a young lady, a friend of the agent. The circ.u.mstances were these:--Two young men, Mr. A. H. W. Cleave and Mr. H. P. Sparks, aged respectively eighteen and nineteen years, were fellow-students of engineering at the Navy Yard, Portsmouth, England. While there, they engaged in some mesmeric experiments, and after a time Sparks was able to put Cleave thoroughly into the hypnotic condition. The following is Mr. Sparks' account of what occurred.

"For the last year or fifteen months I have been in the habit of mesmerizing a fellow-student of mine. The way I did it was by simply looking into his eyes as he lay in an easy position on a bed. This produced sleep. After a few times I found that this sleep was deepened by making long pa.s.ses after the patient was off. Then comes the remarkable part of this sort of mesmerism." (Mr. Sparks then describes his subject's ability to see in his trance places in which he was interested if he resolved to see them before he was hypnotized.) "However, it has been during the last week or so I have been surprised and startled by an extraordinary affair. Last Friday evening (Jan. 15th, 1886), he (Cleave) expressed his wish to see a young lady living in Wandsworth, and he also said he would try to make himself seen by her. I accordingly mesmerized him and continued the long pa.s.ses for about twenty minutes, concentrating my will on his idea. When he came round (after one hour and twenty minutes' trance) he said he had seen her in the dining-room; and that after a time she grew restless; then suddenly she looked straight at him, and then covered her eyes with her hands; just then he came round. Last Monday evening (Jan. 18th) we did the same thing, and this time he said he thought he had frightened her, as after she had looked at him a few minutes she fell back in her chair in a sort of faint. Her little brother was in the room at the time. Of course after this he expected a letter if the vision was real; and on Wednesday morning he received a letter from the young lady, asking whether anything had happened to him, as on Friday evening she was startled by seeing him standing at the door of the room.

After a minute he disappeared and she thought it might have been fancy; but on Monday evening she was still more startled by seeing him again, and this time much clearer, and it so frightened her that she nearly fainted."

Mr. Cleave also writes a very interesting account of his experience in the matter, and two fellow-students who were in the room during the experiments also write corroborating the statements made.

The following is a copy of the letter in which the young lady, Miss A., describes her side of the affair. It is addressed, "Mr. A. H. W. Cleave, H. M. S. _Marlborough_, Portsmouth," and is postmarked Wandsworth, Jan.

19th, 1886.

"WANDSWORTH, "Tuesday morning.

"DEAR ARTHUR,--Has anything happened to you? Please write and let me know at once, for I have been so frightened.

"Last Tuesday evening I was sitting in the dining-room reading, when I happened to look up, and could have declared I saw you standing at the door looking at me. I put my handkerchief to my eyes, and when I looked again you were gone.

"I thought it must have been only my fancy, but last night (Monday) while I was at supper I saw you again just as before, and was so frightened that I nearly fainted. Luckily only my brother was there or it would have attracted attention. Now do write at once and tell me how you are. I really cannot write any more now."

Probably the young lady is in error regarding the date of the first experiment, which may be accounted for by her excited condition--the shock of the last experiment having proved decidedly serious, as was afterwards discovered, and she begged that the experiment might never be repeated.

Both young men mention Friday as the day of their first decided success, but they were experimenting on previous days, including Tuesday, when the young lady writes she first saw Cleave's phantasm. Concerning the date of the last experiment there is no question.

Effects similar to those just related may also occur where the agent is in ordinary sleep, or at least when no hypnotizing process is made use of.

The agent in this case first formulates the wish or strong resolution to be present and be seen at a certain place or by a certain person, and then goes to sleep, and generally remains unconscious of the result until learned from the percipient.

In the following case the name of the agent is withheld from publication, though known to Mr. Myers who reports the case; the percipient is the Rev.

W. Stainton-Moses. The agent goes on to state:--

"One evening early last year (1878), I resolved to try to appear to Z.

(Mr. Moses) at some miles distant. I did not inform him beforehand of my intended experiment, but retired to rest shortly before midnight with thoughts intently fixed on Z., with whose room and surroundings, however, I was quite unacquainted. I soon fell asleep and woke up the next morning unconscious of anything having taken place. On seeing Z. a few days afterwards I inquired, 'Did anything happen at your rooms on Sat.u.r.day night?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'a great deal happened. I had been sitting over the fire with M., smoking and chatting. About 12:30 he rose to leave, and I let him out myself. I returned to the fire to finish my pipe when I saw you sitting in the chair just vacated by him. I looked intently at you, and then took up a newspaper to a.s.sure myself I was not dreaming, but on laying it down I saw you still there. While I gazed without speaking, you faded away. Though I imagined you must be fast asleep in bed at that hour, yet you appeared dressed in your ordinary garments, such as you usually wear every day.' 'Then my experiment seems to have succeeded,' I said.

'The next time I come ask me what I want, as I had fixed on my mind certain questions to ask you, but I was probably waiting for an invitation to speak.'

"A few weeks later the experiment was repeated with equal success, I, as before, not informing Z. when it was made. On this occasion he not only questioned me upon the subject which was at that time under very warm discussion between us, but detained me by the exercise of his will, some time after I had intimated a desire to leave. As on the former occasion no recollection remained of the event, or seeming event, of the preceding night."

Mr. Moses writes, September 27th, 1885, confirming this account. Mr. Moses also says that he has never on any other occasion seen the figure of a living person in a place where the person was not.

The next case, while presenting features similar to the last, differs from it in this respect: that there are two percipients. It is copied from the ma.n.u.script book of the agent, Mr. S. H. B.

Mr. B. writes:--"On a certain Sunday evening in November, 1881, having been reading of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being that I would be present in spirit in the front bedroom, on the second floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance, Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively twenty-five and eleven years. I lived at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to either of the above named ladies, for the simple reason that it was only on retiring to rest upon Sunday night that I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be there was one o'clock in the morning, and I also had a strong intention of making my presence perceptible.

"On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and in the course of conversation (without any allusion to the subject on my part), the elder one told me that on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little sister who also saw me. I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most decidedly in the affirmative; and upon my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied about one o'clock in the morning."

Miss Verity's account is as follows:--

"On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr. B. in my room about one o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr. B., I told him what had happened; but it was some time before I could recover from the shock I had received, and the remembrance is too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.

"L. S. VERITY."

Miss E. C. Verity writes:--

"I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister in the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct. I saw the apparition at the same time and under the same circ.u.mstances."

Miss A. S. Verity writes:--

"I remember quite clearly the evening my eldest sister awoke me by calling to me from an adjoining room, and upon my going to her bedside, where she slept with my youngest sister, they both told me they had seen S. H. B. standing in the room. The time was about one o'clock. S. H. B. was in evening dress, they told me."